Noi's world: Making Ideas Happen

I was invited by SBC to give a talk at Strathmore University on the topic of "Making Ideas Happen"
The following was my speech.

"My name is Eugene Mbugua. I am the creator and executive producer of a television show called Young Rich. Young Rich airs every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on K24. We are currently in our sixth season and have featured over 65 relatively successful young entrepreneurs.

You have probably heard the phrase “If it were easy, everybody would do it.”

Well having ideas is easy and as such everybody has them. Literally everybody you meet has an idea or two that they think could change the world. If you don’t believe me log onto social media right now and see.

People have ideas on how government should be run, how sports teams should be managed, how our security should be handled, how people should dress, how this and that business should be run, how their lives can improve…the list is endless.

The same applies to business. I’m sure you listening to or reading this probably have a business idea or half a dozen.

The sad truth however is that majority of those ideas and I even dare say over 95% of those ideas will never be implemented.

If there are so many ideas, why do so few people actualize theirs?

There is no specific formula to making ideas happen.

The ways that one can implement their idea are as varied as the ideas themselves. These ways often depend on the person’s situation, their environment and the idea itself.

While the ways are varied, there are a few characteristics and traits that one must possess to see their idea to fruition. Today I want to talk about two of those characteristics that I think are the very important.

The first of these characteristics I believe is passion. This is a cliché line and I am sure you have heard it enough times. But the reason clichés are so common is because of the amount of truth they carry.

Passion can be described as intense emotion, compelling enthusiasm or desire for something.

So you have an idea, how passionate are you about it? How badly do you want to see it done? How much of your time do you spend thinking about your idea? How much of your time have you spent researching and talking about your idea? How many of your friends have you told about your idea?

A lot of entrepreneurs I know myself included, and a lot of the ones who have been on Young Rich are not people you would want to spend a lot of your time with. They can be exhausting. They often sound like broken records. They constantly talk about their business, their plans, their achievements, their challenges and their new ideas. Over and over and over and over again.

I believe my friends and the people who work and associate with me are very patient. When I have an idea, I go on and on about it. I’ll meet someone on Tuesday and excitedly tell them about my small idea and then I see this look of patience in their faces right before they remind me that I had told it to them yesterday and last week and the week before that.

So I say ‘oh’ and walk off to find someone else to excitedly tell about the idea.

These entrepreneurs as they talk about their business or current project usually have this look of wander and sheer pleasure in their eyes. This is passion. If you lack it, chances of seeing your idea through are minimal to nil.

You just don’t want it bad enough.

So you have your good idea, you’re supper passionate about it. You’ve pissed off your friends, colleagues and family from constantly talking about it; so then you go out to try and make your idea a reality. This is where the 2^nd trait comes in.

The second trait is so important that it has dozens of words that can be used to describe it; perseverance, tenacity, staying power, steadfastness, persistence, grit, spunk, endurance, pertinacity, immovability, constancy and indefatigability to mention just a few.

No matter how good your idea is or how passionate you are about it, when you set out to pursue it if you do not have the trait described by the words above, you will fail.

Your idea is only splendid when it is in your head. The moment it leaves your mouth and hits the ears of other people, it will immediately encounter difficulty. People will tell you it cannot work, they will show you someone who is doing it better, they will tell you it has never been done, or it has been overdone, they will tell you the time is not right and there is no market for it. They will say you do not have enough experience to pursue it and give you examples of others that have tried and failed.

These people, for the most part are not malicious, society, especially the one we live in is just set up to see the impossibility in things. If you lack perseverance, tenacity and endurance, your idea will die at this stage.

Suppose you give a deaf ear to the naysayers and get on with trying out your idea, you will then most certainly face a tornado of other challenges. You will lack capital, you will not meet the networks you need, you will not find people to support your dream, some will try to derail you, you will be discouraged, you will be defeated, you will lose friends and you will lose relationships.

And just when you think it’s over, some people in your team will quit on you, you will get tired, you will have sleepless nights, people will ignore your calls, customers will be scarce, and people will laugh at you.

Legend has it that Walt Disney was turned down over 300 times before he got financing to create Disney World.

Stephen King who has sold over 350 million books had his first book rejected over 30 times.

John Grisham who has sold over 250 million books had his first book denied by publishers over 28 times until someone gave it a chance.

Elvis Presley, one of the best-selling artists of all time was fired after his first performance and told, “You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.”

Steven Spielberg one of the biggest names in film today and worth over 2.7 billion dollars was severally denied entry into some of the film schools he wanted to get into.

I started my first real company with a friend called Dexter, We wanted to teach kids in nice schools film and get paid for it. Most of the schools we went to; the guards looked us down and turned us away.

We drew up a lot of ideas for TV shows and movies back in the day, we even spent our little money shooting pilots for some and since no one knew who the hell we were, we were unable to get them through any meaningful doors.

I went to USIU and while there, I run a small movie shop and game arcade. When I wasn’t in class or hustling elsewhere, I was a glorified shop keeper at the shop. It wasn’t the most glamorous thing to do and I’m sure many people laughed at it.